Saturday, October 11, 2008

Teng Yu-hsien

Teng Yu-hsien was a Taiwanese Hakka musician. He is noted for composing many well-known Hokkien songs. Teng named himself a Japanese-style pen-name as Karasaki Yosame and a formal name called Higashida Gyōu .

Biography

Teng Yu-hsien was born in , Taoyuan of Japanese-ruled Taiwan. He migrated to the with his family when he was 3-year-old. In 1914, Teng joined Bangka Public School . He graduated in 1920, and subsequently entered the Taipei Normal School . In 1925, Teng graduated from Taipei Normal School, and became a teacher of the Rixin Public School . After he married Chung You-mei in 1926, he departed from teaching job and went to Japan to study composition theory in the Tokyo Music Academy.

Teng return to Taiwan in 1930, then served as a translator in Taichung District Court. In 1932, he was invited by Wen-sheng disc to compose the ''March of the Daitotei'' , a Japanese popular song which was failed to come down until be rediscovered by a collector in 2007. Then he began to be interested by the , an early disc company in Taiwan, and entered this company by inviting of Chen Chun-yu, a songwriter that served as an officer of the Columbia Records. In 1933, Teng composed several well-known hokkien songs such as ''Bang Chhun Hong'' and ''Goat Ia Chhiu'' .

He made a representative work ''U Ia Hoe'' in 1934, a song that depicts the mood of a fictional pathetic woman. Between 1934 and 1937, Teng composed many other songs include the ''Moa Bin Chhun Hong'' and ''Su Kui Hong'' . After the World War II occurred in 1937, the Japanese government began to reinforce the influence of Japanese culture, thus suppressed the development of the Taiwanese Hokkien songs. Many of songs that composed by Teng were banned, and some were rewritten into Japanese language.

In 1939, the Pacific War became much more heavily, thus Teng resigned from his job and evacuated to of with his family, then served as a teacher in the Cyonglin Public School . His health situation was gradually turned down at that time, but he still composed some Japanese songs. At that time, Teng named himself two Japanese names Karasaki Yosame and Higashida Gyōu. In June 11, 1944, he died from lung disease and at , Hsinchu.